A great deal of this was due to the boasting and sarcastic remarks of his injudicious friends, who could not be satisfied with praising their own chief without depreciating others.
Thus the author, after warning his readers of the pit into which so many others have fallen, proceeds in the most inconsistent manner to fall into it himself.
Had we space, we could here make many extracts entirely free from the foregoing objections. Many new descriptions of Indian life, never before in print, are here given; some excellent essays on the prominent phases of American military life; and many anecdotes and biographical sketches of the officers who fell with Custer on the "Little Big-horn," with portraits, are also given. The volume is a very large, handsome octavo, illustrated by two portraits of General Custer (one an excellent likeness on steel), and many full-page woodcuts, and seems especially seasonable as a holiday present. No biographical collection can be considered complete without it, and we should think it would have an especial charm to military readers. That Mrs. Custer is to receive a share of the receipts from its sale will not lessen its circulation.
Palestine is certainly an inexhaustible source of books, and Dr. Ridgaway[15] tells us the reason why. Travellers' descriptions of the grand mountain scenery, its strange deserts, its ancient customs, transmitted from the dawn of history, its trees a thousand years of age, and its mighty ruins, contribute to and intensify the interest which the Christian feels in that region alone of all the earth. Of late years this country has been the scene of systematic explorations and the theme of an important series of critical works. Dr. Ridgaway's volume deserves a place in this series, though he has little of novelty to present. But the author has produced just the book that was needed, the one which it might be supposed the first traveller there would have written. Leaving out nearly all the every-day incidents of travel, he aims to extract from each place he saw just what is of interest to the Bible student. He is to be congratulated on a rare ability to discriminate between the important and entertaining and what is matter-of-course. The plan of his journey, which was made in company with eleven others, mostly clergymen, was to follow the route of the Israelites from Egypt to Palestine, and then to visit every place made memorable by the life of Christ, besides many others of Biblical interest. He tried to be critical, and constantly discusses the pros and cons for admitting the received location of prominent points; but in this he is not very successful, and seems to decline at length into helpless acquiescence. He rejects the innovations and doubts of such men as Robinson and Baker, and acknowledges that the sacred sites have for the most part been identified. But there is a limit to even his credulity. He swallowed easily the "exact spot" where the cradle lay, but strained at the fragment of a column on which Mohammed is to sit when he judges the world, and says, "I was unable to resist the temptation to straddle it!" Perhaps the secret of Dr. Ridgaway's success is that he has omitted those rhapsodies which are natural enough amid such scenes, but which we get our fill of without going to Palestine. He is too full of the real situation to turn to fanciful imaginations, and as a consequence he gives us the best companion to the Bible which we know of. The critical results of his journey are small, but as a careful summary of what others have finally settled upon his work is authentic. A large number of engravings, of the best execution, bring the landscape and buildings vividly before us. Many of them are from Dr. Ridgaway's sketches, others from photographs, and the only fault we have to find is the omission of titles to them, an omission which is artistic, but inconvenient.